Oyyyyyyyy... Are You Ready for ObamaCare?

UPDATE:  Just out of curiosity, I was perusing USAjobs.gov and happened onto a job opening for a writer-editor (WOW: $51,630-81,204) at the Department of Health and Human Services.  The 'Job Summary' begins like this:

"Become a part of the Department that touches the lives of every American!"

Too funny; I had thought only radical right-wing extremists dared to say such things:)

 

 
A bureaucratic nightmare

 

 

  “If this is what passes for health care reform in America,

then God help us all.”

-- Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas

 

 

August 1, 2010:

 Senate Steering Committee Chairman Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) called Obamacare “a bureaucratic nightmare. The Democrats’ takeover of health care creates a byzantine network of 159 new federal programs and bureaucracies to make decisions that should be between just the patient and their doctor....

.... Americans were rightly outraged that this big government bill was rushed through Congress before anyone read or fully understood the bill’s consequences. Republicans will fight to repeal this reckless takeover and to ensure health care freedom to American families.”

 

Herewith a perfect illustration of why so many people have been -and are- alarmed by and opposed to BigGubmint interference and intrusion in our healthcare system:

 

Computerworld - Several privacy groups have raised alarms over plans by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to build a database that would contain information about the healthcare claims of millions of Americans.

.... According to the OPM, the planned Health Claims Data Warehouse is designed to help the agency more cost-effectively manage three health claims programs: the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program (FEHBP), the National Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Program and the Multi-State Option Plan.

The pre-existing condition program, which launched in August, and the multi-state option plan, which is scheduled to go into effect in January 2014, were both introduced earlier this year as part of the Affordable Care Act, the law designed to overhaul health care in the U.S. that was signed by President Obama in March.

The OPM is in charge of administering the FEHBP as well as the two new programs.

In a formal notice published in the Federal Register last month, the OPM said that creating a central and comprehensive database would allow it to more actively manage the programs and ensure "best value for both enrollees and taxpayers."

 

 

As part of the effort, the OPM will establish direct data feeds with each of the three programs and will continuously collect, manage and analyze health services data.

The data that the agency collects will include individuals' names, addresses, Social Security numbers and dates of birth, plus the names of their spouses and other information about dependents, and information about their healthcare coverage, procedures and diagnoses.

According to the so-called systems of record notice (SORN) that the OPM published in the Federal Register, the data collected will be de-identified, which means that details that would tie pieces of data to specific individuals would be removed. This process would occur "in many instances" and before an analysis is conducted, the OPM reports. However, the notice offers no details on how and when such de-identification will be done or the extent to which personal identifiers will be removed before analysis.

In addition to using the data for its own internal analysis, the OPM will also make it available, if required, for law enforcement purposes and for use in judicial or administrative proceedings, and to "researchers and analysts" inside and outside government for healthcare research purposes, the OPM notice said.

The OPM's notice is troubling for its lack of detail and the limited time it offers for evaluation, said Harley Geiger, policy counsel for the [Center for Democracy and Technology] CDT.

"There are far too many unknowns about the program for it to be acceptable," at this point, Geiger said....

 

 

 
See this poster and more at http://www.evasion.cc/blog/comments/designer-obama-poster/

 

 

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Comments

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